In response to a question about what The Irishman might’ve been if he and Robert DeNiro had switched roles, Al Pacino ignored the hypothetical in favor of a half-century-old recollection from an Actor’s Studio acting class, Lee Strasberg in attendance, sometime around ’68 or ’69. (I think.) Captured by Netflix guys during last weekend’s Irishman press conference at the Four Seasons, which I attended. A great story, passed along with typically exuberant Pacino panache. It starts around the 11-minute mark. (Thanks to Netflix for providing the video.)

A few days ago the Broadcast Film Critics Association announced its Best Documentary nominations. The awards will be presented on Sunday, 11.10, at BRIC in Brooklyn, per longstanding tradition.

The org’s top nominees are The Biggest Little Farm, Apollo 11 (an HE fave) and Peter Jackson‘s They Shall Not Grow Old (ditto). I’m a loyal and respectful BFCA member, but ignoring A.J. Eaton and Cameron Crowe‘s David Crosby: Remember My Name is, no offense, deranged. The film is mystical, mythical, uplifting and brazenly honest — it restoreth your soul. And it doesn’t matter if Crosby didn’t get along with Scott Feinberg two or three months ago. Please…a non-issue.

HE’s list of the finest and most award-deserving 2019 documentaries, 14 in all and in this order:

(1) David Crosby Remember My Name, (2) Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Thunder Review (except for the fantasy fake-out interviews), (3) Madds Bruger‘s Cold Case Hammarskjold, (4) Asif Kapadia’s Diego Maradona, (5) Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman‘s Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, (6) Untouchable, (7) Mike Wallace Is Here, (8) Alexandre O. Philippe‘s Memory: The Origins of Alien, (9) Apollo 11, (10) Dan Reed‘s Leaving Neverland, (11) Peter Jackson‘s They Shall Not Grow Old, (12) Matt Tyrnauer‘s Where’s My Roy Cohn?, (13) Ken Burns‘ Country Music and (14) The Edge of Democracy.

On Saturday, 11.2 Once Upon A Time in America‘s Quentin Tarantino, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt will drop by the New Beverly Cinema for a post-screening q & a. DGA members were notified of this a while back, and also informed of numerous opportunities to re-see OUATIH. The appearance will be streamed to certain select venues but not to the general public. A version of the discussion will probably show up on YouTube sooner or later.

Last night and this morning three kneejerk comment-threaders — Bruce Taking a Nap, Overlord and Sunset Terra Cotta — tried the same old “rumble scooters are not motorcycles” superiority schtick this morning, but I bitch-slapped them into submission.

HE to macho numbskulls: “Did you know that manual-shift four-wheel vehicles (dwindling as their numbers may be) are ten if not fifteen times cooler and more manly than automatics? And that guys who drive automatics are not, in fact, men? It’s true. Why? The tactile effort of gear-shifting, of course. And the extra-loud rumble of a well-tuned, muffler-free classic Mustang 289 cc engine….oooohhh, mama! Only emasculated, constantly-texting pussies drive automatics. Ask the ghost of Steve McQueen.

“God, go to Europe one of these years. You’ll find millions of sizable rumble hogs (some smaller than mine, some larger) on the streets of Paris, Rome, Berlin, etc. And nobody spray-pisses about the difference between choppers and rumble hogs. You’re so deeply and profoundly impressed with the studly regimen of shifting gears with your left foot. I’ve been there (German-made BMW yellow jacket from late ‘07 to ‘09) and it barely matters. In the realm of city & canyon driving, it’s all but effing meaningless. Yes, a rumble-hogger misses out on the Zen of motorcycle maintenance, but that involves greasy fingers and higher upkeep costs. **

“What matters is the look, the size, the blackness, the vibration, the sound and the speed, along with the tuk-tuk, the mounted case and the John Wayne–Red River saddlebags. And the presence of heavy-traffic driving skills, of course. Splitting lanes, fearless ducking and weaving, etc.”

Another nitpicker called “The Sandwich” chimed in: “It’s a scooter, not a ‘rumble hog’. Quit railing at the correct nomenclature, dude — it’s sad.”

HE: “Nomenclature, shmolenclature. My trusty steed is what I SAY it is. It is what it looks, feels, rides and sounds like. Buh-RUHM, RUHM, RUHM!! Your nitpicky ninny-nanny objection is less than zero. You and ‘Bruce Taking A Nap’ need to visit Paris some day. Battalions of rumble hogs and nobody gives a damn about your bullshit, nickle-and-dime, left-foot gear-shift hang up.”

** I have a years-long relationship with a brilliant mechanic, Alex of Long Beach, who visits from time to time.

Posted on 10.30 by Christine Rosen for Commentary magazine, a moderate-minded, William F. Buckley-ish, non-lunatic, mildly conservative publication.

Posted on 9.2.19, and re-posted in honor of a new trailer: One measure of a gripping Telluride film, for me, is catching a 10:30 pm showing (and they always start late) and maintaining an absolute drill-bit focus on each and every aspect for 135 minutes, and then muttering to myself “yeah, that was something else” as I walked back to the pad in near total darkness (using an iPhone flashlight app to see where I was walking) around 1 am.

This is what happened last night between myself and Trey Edward Shults‘ Waves (A24, 11.1).

Set in an affluent ‘burb south of Miami, Waves is a meditative, deep-focus tragedy about an African-American family coping with the effects of high-pressure expectations and toxic masculinity.

The bringer of these plague motivators is dad Ronald (Sterling K. Brown), the owner of a construction business and one tough, clenched, hard-ass dude. He injects all of this and more into 18 year-old son Tyler (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.), a somewhat cocky high-school wrestling team star who’s looking at a top-notch college and a go-getter future.

Watching on the sidelines is Tyler’s kid sister Emily (Taylor Russell), a quiet, keep-to- herself type. Their stepmom Catherine (Renee Elise Goldsberry) is a gentle smoother-over, and a counterweight to Ronald’s aggressive approach to parenting.

Tyler’s situation is aggravated when he tears a shoulder muscle and is told by a doctor that he has to stop wrestling. Tyler naturally decides to hide this from Ronald. But the real flash point occurs when Tyler’s spunky-hot girlfriend Alexis (Alexa Demie) finds herself pregnant, and announces that she wants to “keep it.” It?

Tyler freaks (sudden fatherhood at 18 being more or less synonymous with economic enslavement and close to a death sentence in terms of college and opportunity), Alexis freaks right back and blocks him, he responds by snorting and drinking and driving off, and then things come to a horrific climax at a party.

And so ends Part One of Waves, which is a cleanly organized two-parter. And then begins Part Two, which is mostly about Emily quietly coping with the aftermath of Tyler’s tragedy, and Ronald and Catherine all but shut down and incapacitated by it.

The bulk of this section is about Emily meeting and then going out with Luke (Manchester By The Sea‘s Lucas Hedges, somewhat heavier and wearing the same tennisball haircut he had in Mid90s and Ben Is Back). They gradually start going on missions together (including a visit to Weeki Wachee, which I haven’t been to since I was 14) and talking about their buried backstories, in particular Luke’s dying ex-druggie dad.

And then finally Ronald and Emily have “the talk” in which Ronald more or less admits that he pushed the wrong buttons with Tyler and that he’s trying to forgive himself, etc.

The night before last (Monday, 10.28) I attended a screening of The Two Popes at the West Hollywood London. Tatyana couldn’t make it, but perhaps we could hook up later. The 6 pm pre-party was attended by director Fernando Meirelles and screenwriter Anthony McCarten along with the usual gaggle of press folk and Academy members, including HE homey Phillip Noyce.

I parked the bike in my usual spot in the basement garage. They never say anything — I just leave it there and nobody cares. But Monday night was different.

They wanted extra valet money so they said I had to go upstairs and get a valet ticket. I did that, but I told them no one would be allowed to drive the bike up to the greeting area in front of the main door. “That’s okay,” said a senior guy with a jacket and tie. “No one will drive your bike. And I’ll be here until midnight or later.” So I gave him my keys.

Before the screening Noyce had invited me to join him for drink and food with McCarten at the Sunset Tower hotel (8358 Sunset)…cool.

As noted yesterday (“White-Haired Holy Men“) I felt slightly more charmed and moved by The Two Popes than I did during my initial viewing in Telluride.

After it ended I got the parking ticket validated by a Netflix rep, and gave it to the girl at the outdoor valet desk. I told her no one could drive the bike — that I simply needed to get the keys so I could stroll down to the basement garage and drive off.

She didn’t like that idea, and said she’d have to check with her superior. “But I talked with your boss a couple of hours ago,” I said. “He assured me that no one would be driving the bike…that I just needed to surrender the keys for protocol’s sake.”

The keys weren’t findable and things were turning strange. Noyce suggested that I join him in an Uber for the 1/2 mile drive to the Sunset Tower. “Fine,” I decided. “I’ll get the rumble hog later.”

When we got to the hotel I called Tatyana and gave her the address. Unfortunately I searched too quickly and repeated the address of the Sunset Towers office building (8730 Sunset) so we spent a few minutes of confusion on that score. My bad.

We all finally met in the rear of the darkly lighted main floor. Two small tables, five or six chairs, great food and wine, etc. The window behind McCarten offered a perfect view of downtown Los Angeles.

We talked about anything that popped into anyone’s head. The Two Popes, Bohemian Rhapsody, Freddy Mercury, the self-destructive tragedy of Bryan Singer, woke-minded critics and the failed attempt to stop Green Book at the Oscars, and the forthcoming John Lennon-Yoko Ono biopic that Mccarten has written and which Jean-Marc Vallee will direct.

No mention of who will play Lennon, but the script, which McCarten wrote last year, will cover the whole span of their relationship, from ’68 to ’80.

Just after Murray the K‘s death in early ’82, a friend passed along a bitter joke. Q: “What do they call Murray the K in heaven?” A: “The second Beatle.”

When I returned to the London for the bike, the staffers were still in a weird organizational tizzy. Despite Netflix having validated my ticket and despite the jacket-and-tie guy telling me everything would be cool if I returned by midnight (which I did), they said they wanted an extra $10 for parking because the ticket time had expired.

I gave them the ten-spot but talk about greedy and ungracious.

I’m sitting in Chips (11908 Hawthorne Blvd, Hawthorne, CA 90250), a nostalgic old-school diner, while the recently purchased VW Beetle is being maintenanced.

With its naugahyde booths, formica tabletops and Venetian blinds on the windows, Chips is a close relation of the diner that was held up by Pumpkin and Honey-Bunny (Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer) in Pulp Fiction. That scene was shot in the Hawthorne Grill, an actual, since-demolished restaurant (14763 Hawthorne Blvd.) about 20 blocks south of Chips.

Otherwise this is a horrible area of town — a cultural Siberia pockmarked with the usual strip malls, modest bunaglow neighborhoods, small trees, gas stations, auto parts stores, stray dogs and friendly people coping with this or that form of quiet desperation.

The only other place of interest besides the Hawthorne Grill was the original Murry Wilson home (where Brian, Carl and Dennis grew up), but that was flattened in the ’80s to make way for the 105. Nothing in Hawthorne makes you want to stay — the whole area says “get the fuck out of here…run for your life!…run!”

And the music on the Chips sound system…yeesh. Right now they’re playing “Sugar Shack,” a 1963 cutesy pop tune about a guy falling in love with and then marrying a waitress. “Sugar Shack” was recorded by Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs at Norman Petty Studios in Clovis, New Mexico. Wiki excerpt: “The unusual and distinctive organ part was played by Petty on a Hammond Solovox, Model J.”

“Sugar Shack” is 56 years old. Do you think that people having breakfast in Americana diners 56 years hence (2075) will be playing tunes from the 20-teens? Not likely. They’ll probably be playing the same old dooh-wah-diddy-bop. Music from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s never ends.

A day or two ago Variety‘s Chris Willman attended a Sharon Tate triple feature at the New Beverly — Valley of the Dolls (awful), Fearless Vampire Killers (lesser Polanski but tolerable) and The Wrecking Crew (flat-out stinkeroonie).

Willman: “I enjoyed The Wrecking Crew maybe a little less than the audience at the Bruin in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood but what a doll.” What did Willman actually mean when he said he “enjoyed it a little less,” etc.? We can only guess, of course, but my presumption is that Willman hated it so much that at the halfway point he suddenly bolted into the New Beverly bathroom and threw up.

The fact that poor Sharon Tate died in a ghastly and horrific way doesn’t automatically mean that the films she made in the late ’60s were any good.